Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Tax Justice and Governance Platform, have kicked against the planned tax increase by the Federal Government.

In a statement by Executive Director Civil Society legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani and Coordinator, Tax Justice and Governance Platform, Chinedu Bassey, they said should government go ahead with its plans, it will increase inequality among citizens.

The advocacy groups noted that government’s business is to design and implement policies and programmes that enhances the welfare of the poor and protects disadvantaged groups.

The CSOs said: “We want to state our position which is that government designs and implements policies and programmes that enhances the welfare of the poor and protects disadvantaged groups that constitute much of the Nigerian population and address issues of inequality. We call on the federal government to pay serious attention to widening the tax net rather than increasing the rate which will only place more burden on the few that complies already and still exempt the majority that do not pay taxes.”

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“We expect empirical projections and evidence based expected outputs that indicate that the tax yield from some of the measures would outweigh any disadvantage and potential negative impact and that the majority of Nigerians will be the ultimate beneficiaries of the proposed measures. These includes: reducing the tax incentives granted to multinationals which is not even much of a contributor to their existence in the Nigerian business environment.

“The governnment should consider full digitalization of the processes of tax administration to curb leakages in the system.

“Support the establishment of the beneficial ownership register in Nigeria as a measure to know people’s real worth and what they are liable to pay as tax.

“Government should implement the BVN policy as a measure of tracking peoples’ tax liabilities especially the high net worth individuals in the country who has been alleged of not paying taxes at all

“Government should  beam its searchlight on illicit financial flows from Nigeria as it represents a source of substantial revenue leakage and loss to government, with a bid to devising practical strategies for preventing the outflows as a way of also capturing revenue due to government and made available to provide services the citizens”